1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data recording apparatus which records continuous information data on time series and an electronic camera which records image data of a picked-up moving image or still image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a hard disk (hereinafter, simply referred to as an HDD) as a storage medium of various information data reduces the size thereof and increases the capacity of the amount of recorded information data. The compact HDD with the large recording capacity writes/reads data at random and therefore is much used as a storage device of various information data.
In particular, the recent HDD is used for a digital video camera, a digital still camera, or mobile data recording apparatus. A moving image recording apparatus serving as a video camera has such a problem that it takes a long time for searching for and reading a user's desiring scene from a long recorded moving image of which data is recorded from the start to the end of image pickup operation into one file.
In order to solve the problem, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-275081 (hereinafter, referred to as Document 1) discloses a moving image recording apparatus having a random-access HDD serving as the storage medium wherein, when recording the picked-up moving image data to the HDD, a recording file is divided for every scene in which the motion of a picked-up moving image is detected to be recorded thereto.
That is, in the moving image recording apparatus proposed in document 1, the recording file is divided every scene in which a motion is detected and the divided recording files are recorded to the HDD and thus the fast play operation of the desired scene is enabled with the designation of the recording file in the play operation. However, the moving image recording apparatus disclosed in document 1 needs the storage medium having the recording capacity corresponding to the amount of data of image signals as a copy target to copy a moving image signal recorded to the HDD to another storage medium.
Further, a semiconductor memory card including a semiconductor memory, e.g., secure digital memory card (hereinafter, referred to as an SD-card) is put into practical use, as the storage medium. The SD-card is particularly used as the storage medium of a digital still camera. The SD-card is good in portability and easy for handling and management.
Further, a recent digital video camera and a digital still camera pick up and record the moving image and the still image. However, in the digital video camera and the digital still camera having the SD-card serving as the storage medium, the recording time of the moving image, namely, the recording capacity of the moving image data is limited depending on the allowable recording capacity of the SD-card. Therefore, the digital video camera and the digital still camera, in place of the SD-card serving as the storage medium, can pick up and record the moving image for longer time using the HDD.
In the moving image recording apparatus disclosed in document 1 or the digital video camera or digital still camera (hereinafter, referred to as an electronic camera) having the HDD serving as the storage medium, the picked-up image data recorded to the HDD is transferred via a personal computer to record to another storage medium having the recording capacity or more of the picked-up image data recorded to the HDD, e.g., a DVD-RAM.
When the picked-up image data has already been recorded up to the full recording capacity of HDD, the electronic camera can record the subsequent picked-up image data only by transferring and recording the data to another storage medium via the personal computer and by then creating a non-recording area.
Then, the electronic camera requires the easy transfer and recording of the picked-up image data recorded to the HDD to another storage medium, not via the personal computer.